In the England of the Middle Ages, when Christianity was paramount, there was a cruel penal code, there was slavery, there were barbarous forest laws, there were ruthless oppression and insolent robbery of the poor, there were black ignorance and a terror of superstition, there were murderous laws against witchcraft, there was savage persecution of the Jews, there were "trial by wager of battle," and "question" of prisoners by torture.
Many of these horrors endured until quite recent times. Why did Christianity with its spiritual and temporal power, permit such things to be?
Did Christianity abolish them? No. Christianity nearly always opposed reform. The Church was the enemy of popular freedom, the enemy of popular education; the friend of superstition and tyranny, and the robber baron.
Those horrors are no more. But Christianity did not abolish them. They were abolished by the gradual spread of humane feelings and the light of knowledge; just as similar iniquities were abolished by the spread of humane doctrines in India, centuries before the birth of Christ.
Organised and authoritative religion the world over makes for ignorance, for poverty and superstition. In Russia, in Italy, in Spain, in Turkey, where the Churches are powerful and the authority is tense, the condition of the people is lamentable. In America, England, and Germany, where the authority of the Church is less rigid and the religion is nearer Rationalism, the people are more prosperous, more intelligent, and less superstitious. So, again, the rule of the English Church seems less beneficial than that of the more rational and free Nonconformist. The worst found and worst taught class in England is that of the agricultural labourers, who have been for centuries left entirely in the hands of the Established Church.
It may be urged that the French, although Catholics, are as intelligent and as prosperous as any nation in the world. But the French are a clever people, and since their Revolution have not taken their religion so seriously. Probably there are more Sceptics and Rationalists in France than in any other country.
My point is that the prosperity and happiness of a nation do not depend upon the form of religion they profess, but upon their native energy and intelligence and the level of freedom and knowledge to which they have attained.
It is because organised and authoritative religion opposes education and liberty that we find the most religious peoples the most backward. And this is a strange commentary upon the claim of the Christians, that their religion is the root from which the civilisation and the refinement of the world have sprung.